Editing Sephardic Jews (section)

=== Western Sephardim ===
{{main|Spanish and Portuguese Jews}}
{{See also|Anusim|Marrano|Crypto-Judaism}}
[[File:First Cemetery of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, Shearith Israel (1656-1833) in Manhattan, New York City.jpg|thumb|[[First Shearith Israel Graveyard|First Cemetery]] of the Spanish and Portuguese [[Synagogue]], [[Congregation Shearith Israel|Shearith Israel]] (1656–1833) in [[Manhattan]], [[New York City]]]]
[[File:Emmalazarusengraving.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Emma Lazarus]], American poet, born into a large New York Sephardi family.]]
[[Spanish and Portuguese Jews|Western Sephardim]] (also known more ambiguously as "Spanish and Portuguese Jews", "Spanish Jews", "Portuguese Jews" and "Jews of the Portuguese Nation") are the community of Jewish ex-''conversos'' whose families initially remained in Spain and Portugal as ostensible [[New Christians]],<ref>{{cite book |editor1-first=Micheal |editor1-last=Tarver |editor2-first=Emily |editor2-last=Slape |date=2016 |title=The Spanish Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia |location=[[Santa Barbara, California]] |publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]] |volume=1 |isbn=978-1-4408-4570-3 |pages=210–212}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Bernardini|first1=Paolo|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m0JAGMuePO0C&pg=PA371|title=The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the West, 1450 to 1800|last2=Fiering|first2=Norman|date=2001|page=371|publisher=Berghahn Books|isbn=978-1-57181-430-2|language=en}}</ref> that is, as [[Anusim]] or "forced [converts]". Western Sephardim are further sub-divided into an [[Old World]] branch and a [[New World]] branch.

Henry Kamen and Joseph Perez estimate that of the total Jewish origin population of Spain at the time of the issuance of the Alhambra Decree, those who chose to remain in Spain represented the majority, up to 300,000 of a total Jewish origin population of 350,000.<ref>{{Cite book|title=History of a Tragedy. p. 17.|last=Pérez|first=Joseph|year=2012}}</ref> Furthermore, a significant number returned to Spain in the years following the expulsion, on condition of converting to Catholicism, the Crown guaranteeing they could recover their property at the same price at which it was sold.

Discrimination against this large community of ''conversos'' nevertheless remained, and those who secretly practiced the Jewish faith specifically suffered severe episodes of persecution by the Inquisition. The last such episode of persecution occurred in the mid-18th century. External migrations out of the Iberian peninsula coincided with these episodes of increased persecution by the Inquisition.

As a result of this discrimination and persecution, a small number of ''[[marranos]]'' (''conversos'' who secretly still practiced Judaism) later emigrated to more religiously tolerant Old World countries outside the [[Hispanosphere|Iberian cultural sphere]], such as the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany and England.{{citation needed|date=September 2017}} In these lands ''conversos'' reverted to Judaism, rejoining the Jewish community sometimes up to the third or even fourth generations after the initial decrees stipulating conversion, expulsion, or death. It is these returnees to Judaism that represent Old World Western Sephardim. Among this community of Sephardic Jews, the philosopher [[Baruch Spinoza|Baruch de Spinoza]] was born from a Portuguese Jewish family. He was also, famously, [[Herem (censure)|expelled from said community]] over his religious and philosophical views.

New World Western Sephardim, on the other hand, are the descendants of those Jewish-origin New Christian ''conversos'' who accompanied the millions of Old Christian Spaniards and Portuguese that emigrated to the Americas. More specifically, New World Western Sephardim are those Western Sephardim whose ''converso'' ancestors migrated to various of the non-Iberian colonies in the Americas in whose jurisdictions they could return to Judaism.

New World Western Sephardim are juxtaposed to yet another group of descendants of ''conversos'' who settled in the Iberian colonies of the Americas who could not revert to Judaism. These comprise the related but distinct group known as [[Sephardic Bnei Anusim]] (see the section below).

Due to the presence of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition in the Iberian American territories, initially, ''converso'' immigration was barred throughout much of Ibero-America. Because of this, very few ''converso'' immigrants in Iberian American colonies ever reverted to Judaism. Of those ''conversos'' in the New World who did return to Judaism, it was principally those who had come via an initial respite of refuge in the Netherlands or who were settling the New World Dutch colonies such as [[Curaçao]] and the area then known as New Holland (also called [[Dutch Brazil]]). Dutch Brazil was the northern portion of the colony of Brazil ruled by the Dutch for under a quarter of a century before it also fell to the Portuguese who ruled the remainder of Brazil. Jews who had only recently reverted in Dutch Brazil then again had to flee to other Dutch-ruled colonies in the Americas, including joining brethren in Curaçao, but also migrating to [[New Amsterdam]], in what is today [[Lower Manhattan]] in New York City.

The oldest congregations in the non-Iberian colonial possessions in the Americas were founded by Western Sephardim, many who arrived in the then Dutch-ruled [[New Amsterdam]], with their synagogues being in the tradition of "Spanish and Portuguese Jews".

In the United States in particular, [[Congregation Shearith Israel]], established in 1654, in what is now New York City, is the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. Its present building dates from 1897. Congregation [[Jeshuat Israel]] in Newport, Rhode Island, is dated to sometime after the arrival of Western Sephardim there in 1658 and prior to the 1677 purchase of a communal cemetery, now known as [[Touro Cemetery]]. See also ''[[List of the oldest synagogues in the United States]]''.

The intermittent period of residence in Portugal (after the initial fleeing from Spain) for the ancestors of many Western Sephardim (whether Old World or New World) is a reason why the surnames of many Western Sephardim tend to be Portuguese variations of common Spanish surnames, though some are still Spanish.

Among a few notable figures with roots in Western Sephardim are the current president of Venezuela, [[Nicolás Maduro]], and former [[Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States]], [[Benjamin N. Cardozo]]. Both descend from Western Sephardim who left Portugal for the Netherlands, and in the case of Maduro, from the Netherlands to [[Curaçao]], and ultimately Venezuela.